An Anomalous Case of Southern Sympathy- New Jerseys Civil War Stance

An Anomalous Case of Southern Sympathy: New Jersey's Civil WarStance Abstract A popular narrative of the Civil War assumes that all Northern states stood united behind President Abraham

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Hawk, Emily A (2017) "An Anomalous Case of Southern Sympathy: New Jersey's Civil War Stance," The Gettysburg College Journal of

the Civil War Era: Vol 7 , Article 5.

Available at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/gcjcwe/vol7/iss1/5

An Anomalous Case of Southern Sympathy: New Jersey's Civil War

Stance

Abstract

A popular narrative of the Civil War assumes that all Northern states stood united behind President Abraham Lincoln in their loyalty to the Union However, the case of New Jersey suggests that this narrative of devotion

is simply a myth The agrarian economy of New Jersey kept the state firmly opposed to universal

emancipation, and New Jersey behaved more like a border state than its geographic neighbors of Pennsylvania and New York By examining New Jersey's response to the release of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Election of 1864, the myth of Northern unity is broken by understanding persistent state-level economic factors.

Keywords

CIvil War, New Jersey, Lincoln, South, Slavery, Emancipation Proclamation, Election of 1864

AN ANOMALOUS CASE OF SOUTHERN SYMPATHY: NEW JERSEY’S CIVIL WAR STANCE

Emily Hawk

On the balcony of the State House in Trenton on January 20th, 1863, the newly elected governor Joel Parker delivered his inaugural address to the people of New Jersey.1 Parker, a War Democrat, had been elected governor the preceding November by the widest margin New Jersey had yet experienced, capturing 57% of the popular vote over his Republican opponent.2 At the height

of the Civil War, and just after President Abraham Lincoln’s release of the Emancipation Proclamation, Parker’s campaign called for “The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was,”3 a stance reinforced by his inaugural address He, like many of the New Jersey citizens that supported him with their ballot, opposed the notion of universal emancipation foreshadowed by the President’s proclamation “[Our] energies should be devoted to the restoration of the Union,” the new governor proclaimed from the podium, “And the problem of emancipation is one

1 “The Inauguration,” Trenton State Gazette, Jan 21 1863

2 Brad R Tuttle, “Politics to the Dogs: Southern Sympathy During the

Civil War” in How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall, and

Rebirth of an American City (New Brunswick: Rutgers University

Press, 2009), 51

3 Tuttle, “Politics to the Dogs,” 51

to be solved here after by the people of the States where the institution of slavery already exists.”4

Parker’s inaugural speech exemplifies a peculiarity about New Jersey during the Civil War: the state displayed unusual vehemence in its opposition to Lincoln and, in particular, his plan for emancipation In fact, the political culture of New Jersey more closely resembled a slave-holding Border State like Kentucky or Delaware than its neighboring free states of New York and Pennsylvania This divergence from Northern wartime norms—encountered at both the elite and popular levels of the citizenry and in both the Democratic and Republican parties of the state—is best understood by the state’s agricultural economy and political heritage

New Jersey’s animosity toward Lincoln had its roots in the Colonial Era, when the state had been set apart economically from neighboring New York and Pennsylvania As Maxine Lurie explains, many historical accounts of the state of New Jersey in its earliest days simply classify it as a “middle colony,”5 assuming that, by geographical circumstance, it is most similar to neighboring Pennsylvania and New York This assumption is understandable, since much of New Jersey is located within the spheres of influence of the major urban centers of New

4 Larry Greene, “Civil War and Reconstruction” in New Jersey: A

History of the Garden State, ed Maxine N Lurie and Richard Veit

(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 162

5

Maxine N Lurie, “New Jersey: The Unique Proprietary” in The

Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol 111 (January

1987), 77

York City and Philadelphia A great deal of trade flowing into and out of these city centers passed along New Jersey’s Delaware and Hudson River networks.6 If regional and global ideas about liberty, emancipation, and equality also travelled these routes, then New Jersey was also a prime location for political debate in the North

This assumption of geographic similarity is not, however, consistent with the reality of New Jersey’s stunted economic development In the years immediately following its founding as a colony, New Jersey failed to develop any of its towns or ports into major urban centers that could compete with rapidly-growing Philadelphia or New York City This issued plagued New Jersey as it proceeded into statehood; it fell behind its neighbors in industry and manufacturing as the two bordering major cities drained it of trade and commerce.7 With economic growth in this dismal condition, settlers arriving to New Jersey instead focused their efforts on agriculture, making profit by selling or renting their land8 and by exporting produce throughout the Atlantic world. 9

The agrarian economy of New Jersey was intensive; thus, slavery played a crucial role in sustaining that economy New Jersey’s dependence on slave labor had been engrained by the time of the American Revolution In

labor-6

James Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition (Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 2-3

7 Lurie, “New Jersey: The Unique Proprietary,” 84

8 Ibid., 84

9

Maxine N Lurie, “Colonial Period” in New Jersey: A History of the

Garden State, ed Maxine N Lurie and Richard Veit (New Brunswick:

Rutgers University Press, 2012), 54

1790, New Jersey housed 11,423 slaves, 6.2% of its total population of 184,139.10 This figure surpassed the slave populations of all New England states combined.11 While slavery in New Jersey did not reach the role of complete economic domination that it played in Southern colonies with large-scale plantations, the economy in New Jersey still relied on black labor to a significant extent

Slavery was also, as Giles Wright calls it, “an important thread in New Jersey’s social fabric.”12 If this thread were to be cut by abolition, the state’s agricultural routine would be greatly disrupted White New Jersians across the socioeconomic spectrum, therefore, worried about the implications of abolition in both Northern and Southern states White farm workers feared that the flow of freed migrant black workers into the market willing to work for lower wages would diminish their agricultural jobs. 13 A similar fear affected the wealthier owners of the farms; this class’s “preference was for laborers like themselves, considered more assimilable than Africans, who were perceived as uncivilized, primitive, savage, vicious, dangerous, and capable of the greatly dreaded acts

of rebellion.”14

10 University of Virginia Library Historical Census Browser

11

Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 2

12 Giles R Wright, “Moving Toward Breaking the Chains: Black New

Jerseyans and the American Revolution” in A New Jersey Anthology

ed Maxine N Lurie (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010),

194

13

Greene, “Civil War and Reconstruction,” 149

14 Wright, “Moving Toward Breaking the Chains,” 196

These fears perhaps contributed to New Jersey being the final Northern state to pass a gradual

emancipation act in 1804 Even then, the process was very

gradual: slavery was formally practiced in pockets throughout the state until 1820.15 As late as the 1860 census, New Jersey still counted a handful of slaves among its population, while Pennsylvania, New York, and all other free states reported zero.16 Although the formal practice of slavery in New Jersey fell away, racism and racial tensions persisted In April 1861, just before the surrender of Fort Sumter, former New Jersey Governor Rodman Pierce wrote

to the editor of The Newark Journal: “We believe that

slavery is no sin,” concluding with a quote from the Confederate constitution that “Slavery – subordination to the superior race – is [the black person’s] natural and normal condition.” 17 The same fear of economic disruption that caused white New Jersians to resist abolition within the state manifested in wartime discussions of universal emancipation

The general resistance of white New Jersians toward Southern emancipation became apparent in the political sphere when the Whig Party dissolved in the 1850s While most former Whigs, including future president Lincoln, turned to the emerging Republican party, many New Jersey Whigs joined the Democratic Party instead, unable to accept the Republicans’ antislavery

15 Graham Russell Gao Hodges, “New Jersey in the Early Republic” in

New Jersey: A History of the Garden State, 104

16

University of Virginia Library Historical Census Browser

17 Greene, “Civil War and Reconstruction,”159

stance.18 Because so many Whigs backed Democratic candidates in New Jersey, Democrats dominated state politics throughout the 1850s and 1860s, winning most statewide elections and supporting Democratic candidates

in presidential elections.19 Even after Lincoln became the first Republican to win the presidency in 1860, the Democratic Party in New Jersey remained the formidable political force.20

Throughout this period of Democratic dominance, the Republican Party in New Jersey was notably lukewarm

in its support of federal Republican measures The New Jersey branch of Republicans called themselves the

“Union” Party, shying away from the abolitionist associations that came with Lincoln’s brand of Republicanism.21 The Trenton State Gazette, a Republican

paper, often published the Confederate perspective alongside its own opinion pieces, such as the opinion of Confederate President Jefferson Davis Despite the balancing efforts of its attempt to appeal to a broader readership, New Jersey’s Republican press struggled significantly as the war progressed and universal

emancipation became a more serious possibility The

Newark Daily Mercury, one of the Republican Party’s

highest-profile newspapers, went out of business just after

the release of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 due

to lack of support.22

As New Jersey’s economic and political behavior continued on a divergent path from that of its neighbors, the state began to resemble loyal border slave states, particularly Kentucky and Delaware Though neither Kentucky nor Delaware had abolished slavery, both of these states remained loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War However, despite their loyalty to the Unionist cause, Kentucky and Delaware did not show loyalty to its

leader, President Lincoln, or his efforts toward

emancipation The citizens of New Jersey similarly failed

to unify behind President Lincoln.23 Two critical moments during the Civil War best exemplify the parallels among these three states: their shared opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and their electoral votes against the reelection of Lincoln in 1864

In the case of the Emancipation Proclamation, the promise of freed slaves from the states in rebellion presented an external economic threat to many residents of New Jersey As the numerous Copperhead, or anti-war, Democrats in New Jersey imagined it, “the war, originally envisioned solely to preserve the country, had been co-opted by zealots.”24 The Democratic position—still the dominant political stance in New Jersey at the time—had

“consistently portray[ed] the war as an illegal, misguided

abolitionist quest”25 and used the release of the Emancipation Proclamation to justify their rationale State election results in November 1862 confirmed the popularity

of this oppositional stance when Democrat Joel Parker won the office of governor and Democrats won control of both houses of the state legislature.26

Upon the release of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Democratic press was quick to argue that ending the war did not and should not require universal emancipation

An article in a December 1862 edition of The Atlantic

Democrat and Cape May County Register quipped, “The

President’s logic continues the war to 1900, if we

understand it He says without slavery this war could not

continue, and yet he proposes by his emancipation policy to

continue that which continues the war until 1900!”27 Many New Jersians took comfort in the idea that the Proclamation had validity only as a wartime measure and would be

nullified upon the war’s end As another issue of The

Atlantic Democrat reported, “The Constitution gives the

President no authority whatever to issue such a decree as the emancipation proclamation and that the decree, legally regarded, is simply null and void…it must be looked upon

as a measure of war, and not even policy.”28 By questioning the validity of Lincoln’s action, New Jersians

“The Emancipation Proclamation Abroad,” The Atlantic Democrat

and Cape May County Register, January 10, 1863

expressed their hope that universal emancipation would not become a reality

Even though the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the states in rebellion, and therefore did not apply to loyal slave states like Delaware and Kentucky,29leaders in these two states similarly opposed the President’s measure Delaware Senator Willard Salusbury “claimed that its effect would be to flood his state with the freed slaves of rebels, creating racial conflict and serious social problems.”30 He reiterated that abolition was not an option for Delaware, despite its loyalty to the Union, and charged that he “never did see or converse with so weak and imbecile a man as Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.”31 These concerns, stated on behalf of Delaware’s citizens, echo those of white New Jersey farmers They express a fear of both the economic and

social challenges posed by an influx of freed black laborers

Kentucky, considered “the bellwether of the loyal slave states,”32 also opposed President Lincoln—himself a native Kentuckian—and the Emancipation Proclamation Like many New Jersians, Kentuckians generally prioritized the preservation of the Union as the purpose of the war, in

29 Lowell H Harrison, “Lincoln, Slavery, and Kentucky” in The

Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol 106 (Summer/Autumn

2008), 598

30 William C Harris, “His Loyal Opposition: Lincoln’s Border States’

Critics” in Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol 32